While we were in lockdown, I wanted to see if groups could still collaborate online to complete tasks set for them. I noticed that one particular group, Team 'I.S' crew, were finding it difficult to get all members of their group to contribute to group discussions. I had observed this before lockdown in the classroom as well as at the start of our lockdown during our online hangouts.
On the 4th of May, I set the groups a group task and let the groups know that I would be recording them to make sure I can see how to help them better. Here is a blogpost about the lesson.
For the Team 'I.S' crew, I paid particular attention to them because I could see that although they had 4 members of their team online, only 2 of them were regularly contributing.
When I reviewed the video, I noticed that at the start of the groups discussion, most members of the group were contributing. But when one of the students felt like he wasn't being heard or that his point was being questioned, he seemed to distance himself then no longer contributed. It was then left to two of the members to complete the tasks which they didn't get to do. I joined the hangout at the end and I could see that they had struggled to complete the tasks set. In fact, they were way behind the other groups.
After transcribing my feedback to the group, there were a number of things that I noticed that I'd said when one of the students had asked for my help:
I praised the group for doing what they could
I explained why I thought they were finding it difficult to complete
I relayed that I thought they're discussions were good even when I'd only heard a minute of their discussions.
I didn't actually listen to why they were having issues, I just tried to solve it.
On reflection, I wondered about the way I responded to the group. I was conscious of the time and having 5 groups all wanting my attention made it hard for me to listen to understand and I basically listened to respond. I wonder if by having a number of key prompting questions, I could apply more of a deep dive into finding out what the real issue was. I also hope to teach the students how to feel more confident in contributing to their group discussions.
By collating the PAT/Asttle and STAR data for students at the start of the year, I am able to identify where their learning needs with regards to reading and writing.By adding to this ongoing formative and sumative video analysis of groups in actions as well as teacher observations, discussions and student voice surveys, I can create a holistic picture of how a student learns and where their strengths and weaknesses lie with regards to how they collaborate and how they talanoa.
What I have found interesting so far is that some of the less able students who scored quite low in their testing are finding confidence in speaking in front of the class.I wonder if the collaborative nature of the class has allowed the learners to feel validated and safe enough to share.I would like to understand more about how this has happened.
I am hoping to compare students from this class to those in other year 9 classes who are at the same levels of data testing and compare two time points, the start and the end of year data.Coupled with interviews for both groups, I am hoping that this will give me a chance to see whether explicit teaching of collaboration through Talanoa, will be one of the indicators to a shift in achievement.
Today I was sick with the flu and I contacted my classes that I would be having our classes online (as in I was at home) and the classes would login to a hangout from my physical classroom EP6, with the support of their reliever.
One of my classes, the year 10's were really good at showing me who was in the class and I noticed Tom, one of my hard case boys was really engaged. I know he loves to wear his headphones and listen to music so it was good to see him so engaged. Watching the video back, I could see that kids were comfortable to be taught and to learn online, regardless if I as the teacher, was in the classroom or at home. I wonder if this would be the 'norm' in the future?
This week, we celebrated Samoan Language Week in a different way - online!
We didn't want to miss the opportunity to share our culture with staff and students even in a lockdown. The theme was: “Tapena sou ōso mo lau malaga - Prepare yourself a gift for your travels.Below are some of the activities that we did.
Daily activities website:
We created a daily events page on the Social Sciences website for students to do during the week. Tutor teachers went through the activities during tutor time.
Staff briefing:
At each staff briefing, one of our Samoan students would share their understanding of the theme. Here is a link to their speeches.
Student morning tea:
Last year we served hot koko alaisa (cocoa rice) and panikeke's (small donuts) to our students outside the wharekai. It was our way of sharing our love of food with our kids.
Staff challenge video:
Students always love seeing their teachers giving something a go so I coerced some staff to create a staff challenge video which was fun to make and was shown to classes by their tutor teachers.
Staff morning tea:
In previous years we usually have a huge lunch catered by our Pasifika staff. This year, we did it takeaway styles and each staff member was treated to some yummy sweet treats that was delivered to them.
Yummy mud cake for staff
'Pass the Siva' video challenge:
Our team discussed an idea of putting together a 'pass the siva' challenge video where students would perform a short dance and pretend to pass a move to another student. We also wanted to connect our ex-students with our current through the video as the theme lent itself nicely to it. Our Samoan tutor Alby put the word out for students to send in and near the end of the language week, I made a short video bringing all the video's together. Unfortunately we were unable to perform in the polyfest this year, so it was lovely to see our students performing for the video and we enjoyed providing a different way of sharing our love of our Samoan culture.
Share your findings about the nature and extent of the student challenge. Make sure it is clear what evidence from your inquiry supports each finding.
My inquiry is looking at whether project based collaborative ways of learning in a Talanoa environment will make the difference in the learning journey of my year 9 class.I know I need to be more specific with regards to shifting achievement in literacy, so the challenge will be how to shift the capabilities and achievement of our lower achieving students above their entry level to high school. This will be with regards to both reading and writing.
My initial focus was to develop a plan to observe and construct strategies to support students in teams during their groups collaboration process but because of the lockdown, part of my focus has changed to include how groups can do this in both the physical sense (in the classroom) and online.
I have taught level 2 and level 3 Social Studies for a number of years, and when it comes to students presenting their learning to their class (or even verbalising their learning to me their teacher) students find this really difficult.Students refuse or why they know they have to present, they provide an ill-prepared speech or spending the time reading a powerpoint from the board.This led me in 2018, to inquire into why my seniors struggled and to what extent was this lack of speaking to their learning, an impact on their achievement.
A big part of my inquiry focussed on the ‘Talanoa’ and how I thought, that this strategy of having students speak their learning could encourage students inevitably lead my kids to write better.
I found that the actions around the Talanoa did support those students who were already confident speakers and those who weren’t, were able to slowly come out of their shells, with support from scaffolding templates and encouragement fromtheir fellow classmates.Students’ were able to articulate their learning better than before, although I found there was still a disconnect from students who could speak their learning to having to write it.
One of my goals with my inquiry this year, is not to wait until year 12 and year 13 to find out that students could not talk their learning, but to create a culture of ‘Talanoa’ through the collaborative efforts in my year 9 classes project based learning, so that it would be the norm for them.
From my observations of my year 9’s at the start of the year, I could see that there had been some success with regards to students who were less confident before becoming more confident through a lesson we had on conversation skills (blogpost here).However there were many students, particularly those of lower ability struggling with collaboration and speaking their learning.During the lockdown, it was a challenge to run a physical collaboration and so my attention turned to whether students were able to collaborate in a google hangout (blogpost here).What I noticed was that regardless of the platform (physically in class vs. google hangout), students still needed a lot of prompting and scaffolding to support their ‘Talanoa’.Some students needed less whilst others would needed more.
The challenge for my learners this year is understand that the ‘Talanoa’ can work to support their literacy journey towards achievement and success.I want my learners to engage in learning conversations that can be presented in a public forum and understand that the Talanoa is another way to show progress and learning. I want them to support each other in their groups and to use their strengths to build on their participation in the group.This would mean that I need to make sure that I provide enough opportunities to engage in the Talanoa with well-developed resources and strategies that will cater to the varied learning needs of my class.
This week I returned to school and I've felt a familiar sense of safety and comfortable within the 4 walls of my classroom. We were fortunate enough to have a rolling start, so on Monday we just had the year 12's and 13's physically in class and the rest of our classes online (please check my previous blog about this experience).
Monday's class with the year 9's
On Wednesday, I had my year 9 Project class and I excitedly greeted them at the door. They walked into my sanitised classroom and had to sit separately. I noticed an apprehensive feeling in the air. We only had a short time together, so I gathered feedback as to how they wanted to approach the rest of the time left for their projects. They seemed keen to complete what they'd started and this helped us put together a tentative timeline.
Karl Bailey, our classes' project leader met us via hangout as people other then staff and students weren't allowed at school. We also had a few students online whose parents had chosen to keep them at home until level 1 and were later joined by a few stakeholders who were assigned to specific groups.
Here's what the hangout looked like in real time. I had my laptop facing the class and the projector showing the hangout. Today was a basic meet and greet with the supporters as we spend much of the time just getting used to the classroom and each other again.
It was great to be able to have all of the supporters with us on this journey.
Spending time reconnecting with my year 13's.
The last time I was in my classroom and saw my seniors was 7 weeks ago. The day before we went into lockdown 3, I remember telling them that my mum had called me to print out one of her kiwisaver forms asap so she could withdraw all the funds before the lockdown because the bank was going to take all her money. Today I told my class my mum took it all out and had nothing to spend it on because everything was closed anyway. We laughed as we looked back. Even coming back now, it seemed like a life time ago we were saying our last goodbyes.
There are 43 students enrolled in our level 3 course this year and thankfully we have 2 classes each running at the same time. Before the lockdown, we were based altogether in the library and found it easier to work in a lecture type environment where me and my co-teacher would teach the whole lot together for the first part, then students worked independently on their own. Today we returned to the classroom and 21 students came to class. I jumped into a google hangout at the same time in case any year 13's who were at home wanted to join us online. I set up my computer to face the board at the front of the class to capture me and my co-teacher teaching. I used my co-teachers computer to login to the hangout and it faced the students. The picture below shows what the hangout looked like.
My co-teacher and I talked about what we wanted to do with the class before they arrived. We knew we needed to re-connect with them again and it meant leaving out any talk of assessments and to focus on what was on top for them right now. My co-teacher shared a video of Barrack Obama speaking to students whose last year of school it was in the U.S and how as young adults, they were about to venture out into the world. He spoke to students saying that 'this is your generations world to shape' and that the 'power was in your hands'. At the end of video, we talked about the power that they, as year 13's now half way through the year, were now holding in their hands with regards to their futures - were they going to grab hold of it or let it go?
We asked them think differently as students who were going to move into the workforce. I was so encouraged to see my co-teacher tell the class how advanced they were with online learning which already put them at an advantage in this current environment (see 9 minutes, 58 seconds on the video above). As a 'digital' school, most of our students have used one to one devices since they were in primary school. Students were reminded of the fact that the digital skills that they took for granted and were normal for them, were not normal for other students their age during the lockdown. We wanted them to see that as digitally savy guru's of Tamaki College, they had the edge. We posed the question to them - what could your future look like now that you've seen the impact that Covid has had on your lives? They got into groups and we spent the remainder of our time talking about this and sharing lockdown experiences.
Reality check
Listening to the stories that my year 13's shared, had me on an emotional rollercoaster. A group of 5 students laughed and joked about their experiences and how one family travelled all the way to the city to wait for 2 hours in the KFC drive thru just to be turned away because they had cash. Another said she'd waited for an hour for a big mac combo at McDonalds to find out they they had run out of the middle bun for the big mac. We then debated if that was actually a cheeseburger with 2 patties or a skinny quarter pounder. I told them that I'd missed big macs so much, I learnt how to make the big mac sauce (true story) and they just laughed.
One person shared how they'd never really talked to another student in the group before the lockdown, but then they started to google chat like they were long lost friends because they felt like they were the only two actually trying to get their assessments done whilst in lockdown (and they were right). Another group shared similar stories of how bored and trapped they'd felt and they couldn't wait to get out.
The last two students I chatted with, really got to me. I had only seen them once in the whole 7 weeks, which was at the start of the lockdown. They apologised and explained why. One was in a bubble with her parents and 7 siblings, the youngest being a 5 month old. She was the eldest and she said when she'd tried to get online all she would hear was her mum calling her name 24/7. There was never any time to rest. The other student lived with her nana, aunties and cousins. Her 21 year cousin had just given birth before the lockdown and she was sharing her bedroom with her cousin and the baby. She shared how no one had taken the lockdown seriously and she felt she had to make the adult decisions in the household as they didn't really care. She'd only had 2 hours sleep the night before and was struggling to find the time to get her work done. I knew that it was hard for our kids but I didn't realise how bad it was until I heard their realities. My heart broke. I heard myself say 'I hear you, I understand and I'm here if you need me'. What I really wanted to do was cry and give them both a hug.
After the class, I was excited and exhausted at the same time. I could see that our seniors wanted to be at school. They were at school to feel normal again, to feel like teenagers and for some of them, not have to make damn adult decisions. School was their safe place. They didn't mind that their teachers had expectations for them and pushed them. Because they knew that WE knew their stories. They just wanted the chance to try and make the most of every second they were in class before they had to go back to their realities.
I guess the point I'm trying to make with my blog post is that it's easy for us to see the big picture for our kids and point them to a future that's bright. As teachers we strive to ensure our kids are successful in this big wide unforgiving world because it says that they need these credentials to go to uni or those work skills to get a job. What I learnt from today was that every child has a story and every story is important. Reconnecting was about hearing and understanding and hope-ing. I needed to hear every story even the most uncomfortable ones to make me appreciate my role as an educator. We don't always have to have the answers for our kids but we can teach them to ask the questions. Why is it like this? Why is it affecting me? Why, why, why?
In summing up, I guess my thinking has changed in that supporting our kids to get credits is important but wanting them to feel valued and heard first, creates those significant connections in their lives. We want them to feel like they have a purpose and a place in this crazy world. We only have them for a short time so forgive me if for much of the time, we are just talking and learning about life.
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you" - Maya Angelou
